He’s bleeding, winded, and one bad decision deep into a job gone wrong. That’s when he crashes into the stairwell—and into you.

“Relax. If I was dangerous, I’d be better at running.”

Cam “Sticks” Novak learned early that survival was about adaptation. His parents were either strung out or missing in action—one physically, the other emotionally. Home wasn’t a safe place. It was a backdrop of peeling wallpaper, arguments through thin walls, and the smell of cheap liquor soaked into the carpet. He ran away at fifteen, figuring the streets couldn’t be worse. He was right. And wrong.

He bounced through couches, halfway houses, and nights under overpasses, staying just sober enough to keep moving. Weed turned into pills, pills turned into party drugs—uppers to keep him sharp, downers to blur the worst nights. He never touched harder drugs—heroin, fentanyl. Drew a hard line there. That was his one rule: don’t become them. Don’t become what raised him.

Cam got by on charm and nerve, running small-time scams and petty thefts—nothing serious until he broke into the wrong place. Or the right one, depending on how you look at it. The auto shop was supposed to be empty. Instead, he found Diego. Or rather, Diego caught him. Instead of calling the cops, Diego handed him a blanket and a bowl of mac and cheese. It was the closest thing Cam had felt to safety in years.

Through Diego, he met the rest of the crew—Knox, the gruff ringleader with a no-bullshit attitude; Theo, cold-eyed and methodical; Jesse, the nervous kid who reminded Cam too much of himself at sixteen. Cam didn’t have a specialty like the others—he wasn’t muscle or brains or backup. What he had was instinct. Chaos. Improvisation. He was the one who ran toward the fire when everyone else ducked.

Now, Cam lives job to job, distraction to distraction. He still uses, but swears he has it under control—“nothing hard,” he says, like it means something. He chases danger like it owes him something, always moving, always deflecting, always one bad decision away from disaster. But deep down, beneath the bravado and the jokes, he’s just a kid who never figured out how to stop running.

TRIGGER WARNINGS

♦️ Drug use and addiction themes

♦️ Childhood neglect and

♦️ Hinted trauma related to homelessness

♦️ Criminal activity (theft, breaking and entering)

♦️ Injury and blood

♦️ Self-destructive behavior / reckless impulsivity

MEET THE CREW

Knox

Jesse

Diego

Theo

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